How to publish Android App in Google Play Store

Hello Guys!In this tutorial i will tell you how to publish android app to the Google Play store. In this tutorial I will cover some of the steps and checklists for submitting an application to Google play.Launch Checklist

Review publishing process

Review Google Play policies

Test for quality

Determine content rating

Determine country distribution

Decide platform and screen compatibility ranges

Confirm app’s size

Test for quality

Determine content rating

Determine country distribution

Decide platform and screen compatibility ranges

Confirm app’s size

Decide pricing

In-app billing

Confirm localization resources

Prepare promotional graphics

Build and upload release-ready apk

(Optional) Beta release

Complete Play store listing

Promote

Before you publish your apps on Google Play and distribute them to users, you need to get the apps ready, test them, and prepare your promotional materials.

Before beginning the process of publishing an application to the Google play store you should carefully review the publishing process and insure that all of the steps are clear and covered by the plan for publishing.

Make sure that you understand and follow the Google Play program policies that you accepted when registering. Google Play actively enforces the policies and any violations can lead to suspension of your apps or, for repeated violations, termination of your developer account.

Before you publish apps on Google Play, it’s important to make sure that they meet the basic quality expectations for all Android apps, on all of the devices that you are targeting.

Insure that the content rating for your application is approrpaite for the content provided in the application. We will cover this topic more in depth shortly.

The Google play publisher console also allows for declaring specific countries for distribution of your application.

Before publishing, it’s important to make sure that your apps are designed to run properly on the Android platform versions and device screen sizes that you want to target.

The overall size of your app can affect its design and how you publish it on Google Play. Currently, the maximum size for an APK published on Google Play is 50 MB. If your app exceeds that size, or if you want to offer a secondary download, you can use APK Expansion Files, which Google Play will host for free on its server infrastructure and automatically handle the download to devices.

Before publishing your application you will also need to determine the pricing for you application whether it be available for a fee or freely installable. Once you publish an app as a free app, you cannot change it to being a priced app. However, you can still sell in-app products and subscriptions through Google Play’s In-app Billing service.

Once you have finished development and determined your localization options for your application make sure to verify the validity of these resources by testing with the different locale options available for your application.

When you publish on Google Play, you can supply a variety of high-quality graphic assets to showcase your app or brand. We will cover them more in depth later on in this lesson.

Once you have confirmed and verified the previous steps in the checklist you will need to build, sign, and upload a release ready version of your application packaged as an apk.

Before a full official release of your application Google Play can help you set up a beta program for your app. After you sign in to your Developer Console and have upload your APKs, you can set up groups of users for alpha and beta testing the apps.

On Google Play, your apps’ product information is shown to users on their store listing pages, the pages that users visit to learn more about your apps and the pages from which they will decide to purchase or download your apps, on their Android devices or on the web.

To help your apps get traction after launch, it’s strongly recommended that you support launch with a promotional campaign that announces your product through many channels as possible, in as many countries as possible. For example, you can promote a launch using ad placements, social network or blog posts, video and other media, interviews and reviews, or any other channels available.

Determine Content rating

Google Play requires you to set a content rating for your app, which informs Google Play users of its maturity level. Before you publish, you should confirm what rating level you want to use. The available content rating levels are:

Everyone

Low maturity

Medium maturity

High maturity

On their Android devices, Android users can set the desired maturity level for browsing. Google Play then filters apps based on the setting, so the content rating you select can affect the app’s distribution to users. You can assign (or change) the content rating for your apps in the Developer Console, no changes are required in your app binary.

Determine Country, Platform, and Screen compatibility

Control country distribution

Localization

Android SDK version target

minSdkVersion

maxSdkVersion

targetSdkVersion

Screen capabilities

supports-screen

Google Play lets you control what countries and territories your apps are distributed to. For the widest reach and the largest potential customer base, you’d normally want to distribute to all available countries and territories. However, because of business needs, app requirements, or launch dependencies, you might want to exclude one or more countries from your distribution.

It’s important to determine the exact country distribution early, because it can affect:

The need for localized resources in the app.

The need for a localized app description in the Developer Console.

Legal requirements for the app that may be specific to certain countries.

Time zone support, local pricing, and so on.

Before publishing, it’s important to make sure that your apps are designed to run properly on the Android platform versions and device screen sizes that you want to target. From an app-compatibility perspective, Android platform versions are defined by API level. You should confirm the minimum version that your app is compatible with <minSdkVersion>, the maximum version with the maxSdkVersion, and the target version with the targetSdkVersion in your android manifest. The target api version should denote the version this application has been tested against.

In the Android manifest you can also declare which screen sizes your application supports by declaring the supports screens property. This can include options like if the application supports small Screens, normal screens, large screens, and or extra large screens.

Build Release-Ready APK

Code cleanup

Turn off logging and debugging

Generate signing key

Build and sign apk

Prepare external servers and resources

Test release application

Upload and Submit

when you are satisfied that your apps meet your UI, compatibility, and quality requirements, you can build the release-ready versions of the apps. You upload the release-ready APKs to your Developer Console and distribute to users.

Clean up your project and make sure it conforms to the directory structure described in the Android Projects resources on the Android developer site. Leaving stray or orphaned files in your project can prevent your application from compiling and cause your application to behave unpredictably.

Make sure you deactivate logging and disable the debugging option before you build your application for release. You can deactivate logging by removing calls to Log methods in your source files.

The release build process assumes that you have a certificate and private key suitable for signing your application. If you do not have a suitable certificate and private key, Android Studio can help you generate one.

If your application relies on a remote server, make sure the server is secure and that it is configured for production use. This is particularly important if you are implementing in-app billing in your application and you are performing the signature verification step on a remote server.

Testing the release version of your application helps ensure that your application runs properly under realistic device and network conditions.

Finally once you have completed verifying a building the release ready apk for your application you can upload and submit it to the google play portal for distribution.

http://developer.android.com/tools/publishing/preparing.html

Promotional Graphics

Screenshots (required)

High-res icon (required)

Feature graphic (recommended)

Promo video

Promo graphic (used for older versions of Android)

By adding screenshots and video that showcase your app’s features and functionality on your app’s Store Listing page, you can help your app attract new users on Google Play. Some of the promotional graphics are required while others are highly recommended.

Some of the required components for the promotional graphics are screenshots and a high res icon. Although a feature graphic is not strictly required it is highly recommended as well as a promotional video. The promo graphic is used for promotions on older versions of the Android OS (earlier than 4.0).

Screenshots

Up to 8 for each supported device type

Minimum of 2

Requirements

JPEG or 24-bit PNG (no alpha)

Minimum dimension: 320px

Maximum dimension: 3840px

Max dimension <= 2 * min dimension

You can upload up to 8 screenshots for each supported device type: Phone, 7-inch tablet, 10-inch tablet, and Android TV. To publish your Store Listing, you must provide a minimum of 2 screenshots.

The requirements for the screenshots graphical assets are JPEG or 24-bit PNG (no alpha), Minimum dimension: 320px, Maximum dimension: 3840px, and The maximum dimension of your screenshot cannot be more than twice as long as the minimum dimension.

Your uploaded screenshots will be displayed on your app’s details page on the Google Play website and Android app as seen here.

High-Res Icon

Not a replacement for app launcher

Should be higher-fidelity

Requirements

32-bit PNG (with alpha)

Dimensions: 512px by 512px

Maximum file size: 1024KB

To publish your Store Listing, a high-res icon is required. The high-res icon does not replace your app’s launcher icon, but should be a higher-fidelity, higher-resolution version that follows the same design guidelines.

The requirments for the high res icon are that it should be a 32-bit PNG (with alpha), Dimensions: 512px by 512px, and Maximum file size: 1024KB

Feature Graphic

Although the feature graphic is not required to submit an application to the play store it is required in order to be featured anywhere within Google Play. If you’ve added a promo video, a Play button will overlay your feature graphic so users can play your promo video.The requirments for the feature graphic is that it must be a JPEG or 24-bit PNG (no alpha) with Dimensions: 1024px by 500px.

Promo Video

Fun engaging way to show app potential

Individual YouTube video (no playlists)

Tips

Keep it short (30 sec to 2 min)

If available screen record on device

You can add a promotional YouTube video to your store listing by entering a URL in the “Promo video” field. While a promo video is not required, it’s highly recommended as a fun, engaging way to show your potential users the features of your app. Make sure to use an individual video’s YouTube URL, not a YouTube playlist or channel URL.Some tips for your promotional video are Keep your videos short (30 seconds to 2 minutes) and focus on the most compelling features first.And If you have a device running Android 4.4 Kitkat or above, use the adb shell command screen recorder to capture video directly from your device.

Thank you for joining us in this lesson on submitting applications to the Google play store. Join us in our next lesson where we will take a look at integrating advertising in your android applications.

Thank you for reading this article “publishing applications to the Google play store” If you have any doubts, then feel free to use our comment section and don’t forget to share this post